Succubi

“Who is this? Why have you been calling me?”

Martin got up.

“Listen,” the voice creaked. It stalled again, as if each word demanded a pointed effort. “Don’t come,” it said.

“What? Who is this!” Ann demanded.

“You don’t know me.”

“Who the hell is this!”

“Just…don’t come.”

“Give me that,” Martin said.

She held him off. “Don’t come where?” she asked of the caller.

The voice sounded shredded. “Take your daughter… Go far away.”

“If you don’t tell me who you are—”

The voice grated on, but Martin snatched the phone away. “Listen, you son of a bitch,” he said. “Don’t call here anymore or I’ll have the phone traced. I’ll have the police on your sick ass, you hear me?”

Martin looked at the phone, mouth pursed. “He hung up,” he said.

“Who was it, Mom?” Melanie asked.

“No one, honey.”

“Some nut, that’s all,” Martin contributed. “What did he say?”

Don’t come, she thought. Take your daughter… Go far away.

What could he have meant?

What bothered her most, though, was what the voice had said as Martin had been taking the phone.

The moon, Ann. Do you remember? asked the abraded voice. Look at the moon tonight.

«« — »»

Down the hill, trucks roared past along Route 154.

Erik hung up the pay phone.

“You make your precious phone call?” Duke asked when he came back to the station wagon. He was eating Twinkies.

“Yeah,” Erik grated, and closed the door.

Duke grinned, showing cream between his teeth. “You busted out of a psych ward just for that, huh? Just to make a call?”

“Not quite.”

“Who was it?”

“The past,” he said.

Duke chuckled.

Erik drove the station wagon out of the truck stop. Duke had bagged over a hundred dollars at the Qwik Stop. Since then, they had purchased a Norelco electric razor, some food, some different clothes, and hair dye.

She’ll come, Erik thought.

He hoped a cryptic warning might work, but somehow, now he knew it wouldn’t. Providence, they’d called it.

“Where to now, fairy?”

“Duke, please don’t call me that.”

Duke slapped Erik’s back. “I’m just joshin’, man. We’re buddies, right?”

“Yeah. Buddies.”

“Where to, buddy?”

Home, he thought. She’s going to come, and she’s going to bring her daughter.

“We’ll find some out of the way motel for tonight. We gotta change how we look and get some rest.”

“What then?”

“Tomorrow we’ll go to Lockwood.”

Duke guffawed. “Sounds good to me, fa—I mean, buddy. I got nothin’ on my agender.” He crammed another Twinkie in his mouth.

Home, Erik thought. Providence.

He drove the car down the route. He did not look at the moon.

—

Chapter 7

That night, Martin made love to her. Lately, he hadn’t been, sensing her skewed moods. Tonight, though, it had been Ann’s advance. She’d felt her juices flowing all day; she was geared up for Paris—they all were—and Ann supposed that she wanted to see how this prospect of change would affect her responses. She hadn’t had a normal orgasm in two months. She thought sure that tonight, given her different feelings, she could…

But, of course, she didn’t.

She knew just minutes after they started. Martin was very vigorous in his passion; he wanted to do anything she liked, anything that made her feel good. When foreplay failed to moisten her, he went down on her, yet the harder she tried to get into it, the more remote she felt. After an hour they were engaged in positions they’d never attempted. Poor Martin, he was trying so hard, and so was she. But how can he know? she thought, turned upside down over the edge of the bed. Thank God for the dark. What would Martin think if he could see her face squeezed closed in anguish? It was like pushing a refrigerator up a steep incline, the effort she exerted to keep the images of the dream out of her mind’s eye.

His penis felt cold in her. She didn’t even feel like herself. It’s more like watching Martin fuck someone else, she thought, despairing. Each thrust into her flesh jerked the nightmare’s face closer. She was starting to get sore. She put on her act, which she’d gotten quite good at recently, and then it was over. He spent himself in her and collapsed.

Fear and guilt. But of what? Dr. Harold’s implications were hard to put into decipherable terms. Everything was a matrix of symbols. The symbols were sexual. Having real sex with Martin— the man she loved—reminded her of sex as it should be. The fear and guilt in her psyche prolapsed that reminder, filling her subconscious with ideas of sex as it shouldn’t be. She was afraid of the nightmare because the nightmare attracted her in some way, aroused her, and being aroused by an aberration caused a negative response. Hence, no orgasm under normal circumstances. Her consciousness battled with her subconsciousness. A vicious cycle.

She felt guilty about the dream because the dream came from her. The dream disgusted her, yet it also fulfilled her. More guilt, more fear. The dream was destroying them all.

Yes. Thank God it’s dark.

She pushed her face in the pillows to dry her tears.

Eventually, Martin fell asleep. His semen trickled in her; it felt cold. None of this is his fault, yet even he’s becoming a victim.

Does he know? she dared to ask herself. It was a question she’d kept buried. Did he know that she faked her orgasms? Martin was very perceptive, often uncannily so. How long could their relationship last like that?

Then another dread drifted up: Melanie. Do I really doubt that she’s a virgin? Dr. Harold seemed to think so. The dream was of Melanie’s birth, and it was sexual. What was her subconscious trying to suggest in that? Ann had always left sexual issues to the board of education, which only highlighted her failures as a mother. Mothers were supposed to talk about such things with their daughters, weren’t they? Ann’s mother hadn’t, though, and again Dr. Harold came to mind. You’re afraid of becoming your mother, he’d said. A few times Martin had talked to Melanie about sex, considering the AIDS crisis